A fragment of something Jesus said, “… but the labourers are few …” had been coming to thought for a couple of days. Finally, I turned to the whole statement in the Gospel of Luke: “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest” (10:2).
The words were certainly familiar, but suddenly I realized I’d been skimming over those first five words. This time, however, the words might as well have been in billboard-sized letters. “The harvest truly is great,” Jesus had said. There wasn’t any question about the size of the harvest or when it would come about. It was already there, and it was major! Obviously that’s why more workers were needed. Jesus was using a metaphor to which his listeners could readily relate. But he was, in fact, teaching something utterly new, something beyond any human circumstance to limit. The harvest he was talking about was a harvest of such infinite divine goodness that it not only uplifted lives 2,000 years ago but would do the same whenever it was glimpsed.
Mary Baker Eddy, who opened up the Science of Christ to this age, explains the immediacy of God-given good. Paraphrasing Jesus, she writes, “… while ye say, There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest ….” She adds, “and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes” (Unity of Good, pp. 11–12).
